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Tuesday, 13 November 2012

We've lived in the house for just above six months now and we've never used the fire-place! I guess it hasn't been all that important during the warmer months, but now I definitely feel like it's about time to inaugurate it. We came a bit closer to that when my friend, colleague and neighbour H surprised me with two big bags of firewood after work yesterday! My fire-wood storage might be just a little bit unconventional, but I quite like it.

Today I gave an old print from Fretex (the Salvation Army) a new look with some markers. It's easy peasy and very convenient to re-make stuff that is already in a frame...

By the way. Working on this blog has become increasingly challenging as 1: I can only use my laptop and I don't have Photshop on it and 2: my camera has really been acting out since I dropped it on the asphalt in Groningen. I'm actually holding some post about the house back until I can start taking good pictures again. And since good lighting conditions are rare at this time of year good pictures are hard to some by. Well well, we'll see.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

...for waking me up by licking my face, it's really hard to stay asleep while you're doing that so getting up in the morning is easer now.
...for smelling like gingerbread today (!?) it made me think about Christmas!
... for making funny noises
... for acting like a happy puppy when I come home from work
... for always throwing up your hairballs on the carpets. Sure cleaning the actual floor would have been easier, but at least I always know where to look.
...for keeping my belly warm when I watch my series
... for giving me something to miss when I'm away from home
... for sitting on my shoulders when I work in front of the computer, it gets real nice and warm with you balancing up there!

Friday, 26 October 2012

... To Sweden! Sitting and waiting in the airport. I try to always be in very good time to my flights so I can sit and relax a while before takeoff. Today the weather hasn't been so great -it's been snowing! - so I can only hope for a smooth flight.. But it's worth it for a spa-weekend with my Swedish girlfriends!

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

So this weekend I visited A in his work-apartment in Groningen - Holland. I've been to this town before, but now it was nice to see. it again, and especially A's place. The apartement was nice, the weather not always so.

A's apartment is really close to the art-museum, so of course we had to go. We saw two exhibitions, textile sculpures by Yin Xiuzhen, and "Urban Gothic" by Marc Bijl. I liked the first one best - especially her "portable cities" made out of clothes donated from people from each city and incorporating music and maps from each place.

portable city - this is actually Groningen, with the art museum in the river

Urban gothic

We also had time for some good food at Humphrey's and a little bit of shopping during my short stay. Even though going there for a weekend is a little too much traveling for such a short time it was great to get to see where A spends his weeks. Next time I hope I manage to go a time where there's no construction on the railway though...

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

As I've mentioned before I've already done some repainting in the house. It's one of the walls in the bedroom that got a darker colour (NCS 6502-Y) to ad some depth to an otherwise quite small room. Now I'm so much happier with it, and it got even better when A put up the Muuto hooks (the small version in oak) that I ordered a while back. We worked hard this weekend with several home improvement-projects and we finally got some lights up on the second floor. Now I can actually see what colour my clothes are when I get dressed in the morning...

I still don't have PhotoShop on my laptop and the indoor light during
fall afternoons is not optimal so the quality will be so-and-so, but
there will be more pictures from the house in the coming days...

One of my favourite things with Stavanger is the annual NuArt festival. This is an art-festival that focus on street art.This year I'm happy to see that one of the most boring walls in the entire city - and a very central one at that - has finally gotten some well deserved attention. This was just a huge, dirt-grey wall before. I love this.

Monday, 8 October 2012

This is what I what I wake up to every morning. Which is nice. One of the best things there is, in my opinion. But it seems Cricket is getting just s little bit restless some times and A and I are considering a new friend for her. We'll see...

Inviting people over for dinner must be one of the best things to do on a Sunday. Or a Monday. Or any day when you want to have a good reason to clean the house and whip up some tasty food. That's what me and A did yesterday. Since I'm not very good at making an effort with dinner on those nights when I eat alone this is somewhat exotic for me.The inspiration for this was the latest post on our friend C's food blog "Cristofers Kök", a very nice blog that I totally recommend. Reindeer and yellow chantarell was the main ingredients for this Sunday dinner. Very Scandinavian and very tasty. Our dinner-guests E and B just came home from a vacation in Greece so I think that's exactly what they needed to get back in to the Norwegian mood.

Friday, 5 October 2012

I had a quite long day at work today... important meetings and dead-lines, and I was already tired and stressed in the afternoon when I remembered I had to run out to buy special cat-food for Cricket at the vets. I stood waiting for the bus for quite some time, and I was bored. So I browsed through the recent status updates at on Facebook, which I doesn't use so much. And there I got a verypleasant surprise, that turned my whole afternoon in a much more happy direction: my favourite blogger Karin announced the winner of a lottery she'd held, and I was the lucky winner! Since the coolness of Karin is huge this is a big deal for me! The price is an Karin-.made illustration with the motive is of the Swedish king so it will be very appropriate when I need to remember the homeland... I already know where to put it. I'm still ridiculously thrilled and due to this I've had a twitch in my right eye-lid for the last six hours.

This is how happy I was, in a changing room, only minutes after I found out. Happy happy :)

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

To Cricket, my little crow: You are over 7 months old now! You have grown so fast and you are curious and lovely. Your have fur so soft that when I touch it it's like touching air. It's completely black except for a tiny spot on you belly, and it anoys me that the camera can't be as clever as my eyes and see how perfectly cool and pretty you are.Your paws and you nose are the cutest things there is.

You like to wake me up way too early by washing my hair and giving me cat-kisses on my face. When I try to work at the computer or draw something with a pen and paper you like to be on the paper or on the keyboard. It's just a little bit frustrating... Otherwise you like to hang out on the window sills. Or just on my chest when I watch TV. In general you like to be in the same room as me, and I love that, except when I try to clean.

You make funny noises - I read somewhere that that's one of the things that makes the Maine Coon special - the chirping noises you can do. You mostly make them when you are bored and want attention. When you feel abandoned - like when I'm in the shower - you MEOW really loud.

There used to be two little cats in our house, but now there's only you. Because one day your brother was just too sick and I had to take him to the vet and when I came back he wasn't with me and we were so sad. I think you looked for him for a while. But you have me and I have you and we'll be fine.

I haven't published any pictures of the bedroom yet, or any room in the new house really, but things are getting more and more finished so it's coming soon! Anyway I'm re-painting one wall in the bedroom now, the first version turned out quite bland so I'm going a bit bolder. I have no pictures yet, the paint is drying as we speak, but look what I picked up at the post office today! Oak hooks from Muuto, these will end up on the new wall soon! Bought at Rum21.no.

Monday, 1 October 2012

Today I visited the new concert house here in Stavanger with work. Didn't take any pictures except for this one in the loo. Glass tiles in my favorite color-combo... Greens and greys and blues. The rest was nice too, though.

Monday, 13 August 2012

I bought this set of 100 Pantone post-cards when I was with T & E in Bergen earlier this summer. I figured I'd probably find some good use for it. To begin with, some of them will adorn a wall in the first floor hallway.

This space will be the sewing-room, blog-area and DIY-corner when all is done.

Cricket the curious cat follows me from room to room and always wants to be part of every picture.Well, I can oblige.

Friday, 10 August 2012

Today I took a short trip to the city centre after work. I tried to find some wall paper to use in an up-coming kitchen project, but I wasn't lucky. I think I have to order online... well. On my way home, before doing the grocery shopping for the weekend ( cup-cakes, chocolate, bacon...) I made a short stop at Ting. There I stood and drooled for a while over some of the stuff from Danish Ferm-living. I want things. Many things. And maybe I'll just order my wallpaper from them? I'm thinking either this one or this one, though it's a bit darker than I had planned... But the pattern's so lovely!

It's raining. And I just came home from the vet with a highly un-perky cat. Said cat is now hiding in his little house and I'm worried. Oh, and this morning I noticed that someone had stolen A's bike from our garden. Crap,crap crapeti-crap.

Monday, 6 August 2012

I'm having a post-vacation new-start by reliving the 90s. Buffy-marathon, nail-polish extravaganza and fruit-sallad in the couch. It's been a while since I saw season 1, and I had forgotten about all of the lovely grunge music at the Bronze! The not so good special effects I had not forgotten, but the witty script still makes me happy as a pig in mud!

Sunday, 5 August 2012

and I don't even feel very stressed about it.This last week has been dedicated to cuddling with A and the cats in the couch while watching the Olympics, but we have also managed to do most of the stuff on my "To do in the House"-list. Today we finished putting up the curtains we're going to have instead of doors to the wardrobes, and we finally managed to get the door to the kitchen done as well. And then I'm going to plan this weeks outfits and prepare my first week back at work. Since A is starting his weekly commute to Holland this week I'm going to introduce some new routines so it will be easier to fill the days with meaningful things even though I'll be by my self a bit. Well-planned dinners (A usually cooks,) getting up earlier and exercise more are some of the things I hope to make a part of my every day life. We'll see...

Friday, 3 August 2012

... until this years summer-vacation is over. This has been a sort of crazy day with a new trip to the vet, but one that did not give any new answers. The rest of the day however has been really great with some serious gardening in the sun and now me and A are hanging out in the couch watching the Olympics with some take-away burgers. We have two cats chasing each other around the backrest of the couch so tonight I think I can forget that things are not looking so good for little Charlie.

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Being an expat mean that most holidays includes a trip back "home". In my case it means that I try to see as much friends and family that I can in a short period of time, so I move from place to place a bit. This year I was lucky to catch pretty much all the good weather Sweden has had this summer, so it was all good.

I started off visiting my brother M and his S in Stockholm, celebrating his birthday on trying out the fabulous means of transportation Segway.

After an successful trip around Hammarby Sjöstad we had dinner at Döden i Grytan. Nice place, nice people.

During my three days in Stockholm I also got to visit Vaxholm, see Stockholm from a boat, eat some really good food and have drinks with my good friend V at Grand Hotel. All good.

On my way from Stockholm to Gothenburg I stayed for at my grandparents house in Kisa, a quite typical Swedish small town. Very idyllic.

Back on the west-coast I got to spend some time with this awesome guy. All of a sudden he seems so very big compared to the little ones back home in Stavanger!

Apart from hanging out in the green house me and my mom also went horseback riding, on Icelandic horses. That was really great, I haven't been on a horse since I was nine or so, but it worked out fine and I really liked it. Icelandic horses are a good size, too.

I also spend some time with A and his parents in their summerhouse in Bovallstrand on the west coast, but I had to cut that visit a bit short since one of the cats back home became sick. But anyway. 8 eventful days. And then I haven't even written anything about the shopping I did!

Well, hello there!

This is a diary, of sorts, written by me, Annika, architect turned graphic design student. I spent my first 26 years in Sweden, the following 7 in Norway and now I live with my husband and two cats in Brunei, on the tropical island Borneo. Read my blog if you - like me - are fond of traveling, dressing up, reading fantasy, watching loads of Netflix, looking at cats, dancing Lindy hop and eating candy. Occasionally I get creative and, well, create stuff. When that happens I'll most likely blog about it. Welcome!